For a lot of small companies, promoting a product isn’t merely about making a revenue, however fairly fulfilling a better mission. For Pipermoon, a Pacific Northwest-based blanket firm, that mission is to “present hugs one blanket at a time.”
And since launching its ecommerce retailer on BigCommerce three years in the past, Pipermoon is simply getting began.
Impressed by the nostalgia of child blankets, Pipermoon provides teen- and adult-size blankets made out of a stretchy, weighted material. Whether or not a buyer goes by way of a tough season, staying within the hospital or scuffling with insomnia, Pipermoon Blankets provide a supply of security and luxury for anybody who wants it.
A Blanket #LikeaHug
Based on Kimberly Cannon, Founding father of Pipermoon Blankets, the enterprise acquired its begin for a special motive.
Residing in a rural city, Cannon’s children typically had lengthy, late-night bus rides getting back from highschool basketball video games on college nights. When she found that her daughter and her teammates had been sleeping on the ground of the bus, Cannon instantly noticed a necessity.
She got here up with the thought of an adult-sized, simply washable blanket that might simply match within the children’ duffle baggage whereas touring — and so grew to become Pipermoon Blankets.
However when the pandemic hit, the imaginative and prescient for Pipermoon took a special route. Amid the uncertainty and concern of the pandemic, a lot of Pipermoon’s clients turned to their blankets as a supply of consolation, so Cannon and her crew took the thought and ran with it.
“Particularly when COVID-19 hit and everybody was social distancing, clients would ship our blankets to their family members saying, ‘I can’t hug you in particular person, so I’m gifting you my favourite blanket that’s similar to a hug,’” Cannon mentioned. “That really grew to become our hashtag — #LikeaHug — as a result of our clients directed us that manner.”
However this mission of consolation doesn’t cease with Pipermoon’s clients. Cannon herself aspires to reside out Pipermoon’s mission within the little moments of her day-to-day life.
“I’m all the time go go go,” Cannon mentioned. “So I’ve just lately been attempting to create rituals in my life like placing a blanket round me sitting on the porch, watching the sundown or with a cup of tea — simply attempting to be current and apply a bit bit extra self care.”
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Giving Again — One Blanket at a Time
From the day Pipermoon was born, Cannon knew she wished to make use of her enterprise as a approach to give again.
“Once I was in faculty on the College of Utah, I used to be volunteering on the Major Youngsters’s Middle in Salt Lake Metropolis,” Cannon mentioned, “and I seen day by day that there are such a lot of actions, items and applications for the youngsters which might be in long-term stays, however not fairly as many for youngsters.”
For greater than 20 years, this difficulty caught in Cannon’s thoughts, and was later rekindled when a detailed household good friend underwent therapy for mind most cancers. As a 14-year-old, he was in a position to affirm precisely what Cannon had noticed in faculty — that whereas there have been actions and items out there for the youngsters, they had been primarily designed for youthful youngsters.
Figuring out how a lot consolation their blankets had introduced different clients, Cannon knew that Pipermoon was the proper alternative to resolve the issue she had contemplated on for thus a few years. At this time, Pipermoon Blankets donates a proportion of its blankets to Major Youngsters’s Medical Middle in Salt Lake Metropolis, Utah, Youngsters’s Hospital Los Angeles and St. Jude Youngsters’s Analysis Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee.
A Massive Neighborhood of Small Companies
Trying again on the final three years of Pipermoon, Cannon acknowledges that being a small enterprise proprietor is not any small feat — however you’re by no means alone.
When requested what recommendation she would give herself three years in the past, Cannon emphasised the significance of neighborhood. Connecting with different feminine small enterprise homeowners by way of The Product Boss podcast, Cannon defined that the neighborhood of ladies is ready to speak to one another by way of points that come up and stroll with each other by way of their very own enterprise journies.
“It’s actually vital to search out folks which might be in the identical sort of trade, who’re keen to speak to you and information you thru all the challenges of proudly owning a small enterprise,” Cannon mentioned.
A Mission Fulfilled
Regardless of the challenges that include being a small enterprise, for Pipermoon, the one factor that makes all of it value it’s seeing their mission come to life.
“We’ve got some mother and father which have autistic youngsters who’ve reached out to me to inform me that their youngster slept for the primary time in 4 years,” Cannon mentioned. “That was an e-mail I simply acquired final week and it simply made me cry. These are the most effective issues.”
Whether or not it’s listening to {that a} buyer used their blanket as a consolation throughout a tough time, or {that a} buyer’s youngster or husband stole their blanket as a result of they cherished it a lot — Pipermoon needs its blankets to really feel #LikeaHug regardless of the explanation.
“The perfect factor is while you see a repeat buyer order,” Cannon mentioned, “as a result of you recognize that your mission and what you’re attempting to perform is touching different folks’s lives, too.”
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